Will we ever visit other stars? Interesting video.

Well, I just watched a video on youtube from a channel called Vsauce. Its talked about space a bit before but the recent video got me a bit sad. In theroy, we could visit other stars. In practice though, it seems unlikely. With our slow, current means of space travel, it would take 5-50million years to colonize and explore our own galaxy, in theory. The video goes on to say the 2008 Joint Propulsion Conference concluded its improbable we will ever explore outside of our galaxy. There was even some math given on our own growth rate. Given the pace of our progress so far when it comes to travel velocity and Earth's mean economical growth, the soonest we would reach a star that is 6 light years away is 1,104years.

With all of this information, I am a really saddened. Not only will I never see beyond the galaxy in my lifetime, but humans as a whole may never see it at all. I always thought that hey, even if its not in my lifetime, we will get there eventually. Now the only way I see that happening is if someone somehow makes a incredible invention that can defy our current laws.

What do others think? Does this information make you believe that there is no hope for our race ever getting beyond our own galaxy? If so, would this be a very strong argument for why another life forms, should one that is advanced even exists, would deem us unworthy of being visited? Assuming they were capable of it.

Here is the whole video if anyone wants to see it. It also gives a bunch of links to the various information used in it.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD08CuUi_Ek
Lots of science stuff on it. Interesting for most who enjoy science, even if its not about other galaxy's.

You can already see beyond our galaxy ... check out light pollution maps, then go somewhere there isn't and look up and be amazed, then, have a decent telescope with you, and see things you wouldn't think possible.

It would be nice to travel the stars like Star Trek, but even they didn't really leave their quadrant of their galaxy (Voyager based on being put in a different one and trying to make it home, even though without the 'caretaker' it'd be impossible).

Star Wars I believe is closer to galaxy hopping, at least in the SWtOR universe, traveling from opposite sides of the galaxy in moments (never read any of the SW universe books, and vaguely know the movies, though I like its general theme; so don't know their theoretical travel capabilities).

As much as I'd love to get a better view of everything in space, I'd love to get a view on things just in our solar system.

Imagine, flying near any of the gas giants. Seeing the storm on Jupiter. Seeing the hexagon storm on Saturn. Getting closer view of the planets rings. Not to mention something less grand, but still amazing, just being in low earth orbit and looking back at our planet with my own eyes. Getting on the dark side of the planet, with no moon, and looking out into the vastness of space, with truly no light nor atmospheric pollution.

We do need to make a leap in space travel capabilities ... but hard to do that when people are fighting with each other about everything, while the governments piss away trillions on wars, espionage, and general waste ... while our space budget is so low it barely registers compared to the money that gets wasted with no return on investment. Human greed and thirst for power/control, it usually has terrible results.

Well, I just watched a video on youtube from a channel called Vsauce. Its talked about space a bit before but the recent video got me a bit sad. In theroy, we could visit other stars. In practice though, it seems unlikely. With our slow, current means of space travel, it would take 5-50million years to colonize and explore our own galaxy, in theory. The video goes on to say the 2008 Joint Propulsion Conference concluded its improbable we will ever explore outside of our galaxy. There was even some math given on our own growth rate. Given the pace of our progress so far when it comes to travel velocity and Earth's mean economical growth, the soonest we would reach a star that is 6 light years away is 1,104years.

With all of this information, I am a really saddened. Not only will I never see beyond the galaxy in my lifetime, but humans as a whole may never see it at all. I always thought that hey, even if its not in my lifetime, we will get there eventually. Now the only way I see that happening is if someone somehow makes a incredible invention that can defy our current laws.

What do others think? Does this information make you believe that there is no hope for our race ever getting beyond our own galaxy? If so, would this be a very strong argument for why another life forms, should one that is advanced even exists, would deem us unworthy of being visited? Assuming they were capable of it.

Here is the whole video if anyone wants to see it. It also gives a bunch of links to the various information used in it.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lD08CuUi_Ek
Lots of science stuff on it. Interesting for most who enjoy science, even if its not about other galaxy's.

Some incredible invention like:

figuring out the world WASN'T flat.

Flying Machines.

The internet.

Dude if you told people in ancient Greece about these inventions they wouldn't even get the concept. Just because you can't think it know doesn't mean something crazy can't be invented.

You can already see beyond our galaxy ... check out light pollution maps, then go somewhere there isn't and look up and be amazed, then, have a decent telescope with you, and see things you wouldn't think possible.

Seeing just makes me want to go their more, or at least think that we will go there. Who knows if what we are seeing can even be a clear representation to the pure awesome that it is.

I'd love to get a view on things just in our solar system.

Imagine, flying near any of the gas giants. Seeing the storm on Jupiter. Seeing the hexagon storm on Saturn. Getting closer view of the planets rings. Not to mention something less grand, but still amazing, just being in low earth orbit and looking back at our planet with my own eyes. Getting on the dark side of the planet, with no moon, and looking out into the vastness of space, with truly no light nor atmospheric pollution.

In our current form, even that is but a dream. It would take Years and Years just to go there, not to mention the fact it would probably be a one way trip. Like you said, we need some serious leaps to even explore our own galaxy.

Dude if you told people in ancient Greece about these inventions they wouldn't even get the concept. Just because you can't think it know doesn't mean something crazy can't be invented.

As time goes on, so too does our knowledge. However, figuring out the Earth wasn't flat, or flying is a whole different game. The internet wasn't nearly as big of a stretch of the imagination since we already had phones. However, traveling at the speed of light or faster isn't even thinkable at the moment. The invention and leaps we need to suddenly be able to explore our own galaxy, let alone others, in a decent amount of time AND to be able to return safely would have to be much Much bigger in terms of just how far out of the box they go.

Even if it takes 1100 years, it's hardly never.. you may not see it but humans will still be here

I'm much more interested in us just exploring the solar system though. Taking a vacation on Mars might be interesting (or not). They even have some project where they plan to send people there permanently as part of a TV show.

Even if it takes 1100 years, it's hardly never.. you may not see it but humans will still be here

I'm much more interested in us just exploring the solar system though. Taking a vacation on Mars might be interesting (or not). They even have some project where they plan to send people there permanently as part of a TV show.

Well, that number is assuming we continue on our current pace, and we don't all just die before then. I heard about that TV show, but I wouldn't count on it being successful. From what I saw on the article about it, they aren't even going to send anyone too specialized and only a handful of people at first. Hardly what any credible mission that wanted to succeed would do.

I dont think people can say whats possible in a hundred thousand years or in a million years anymore than some caveman could say tens of thousands of years ago what life would be like in our time. Things tend to change.

I dont think people can say whats possible in a hundred thousand years or in a million years anymore than some caveman could say tens of thousands of years ago what life would be like in our time. Things tend to change.

If we are alive that long. It is very likely that sometime in the next 500thousand years we will encounter an asteroid that will wipe us out unless we have a means to destroy it at that time.

If we are alive that long. It is very likely that sometime in the next 500thousand years we will encounter an asteroid that will wipe us out unless we have a means to destroy it at that time.

We will likely have colonies on other planets at that point. Even if its just moon and Mars to begin with. And the last asteroid didnt even destroy life on earth, it just wiped out the dinosaurs, the rest survived and evolved. And we have something dinosaurs didnt, smarts. Im more worried us blowing ourselves out with nukes or through some other societal collapse. Its a test of worthiness we have yet to overcome, to become truly spacefaring and growing up.

Besides I discussed this with my friend recently, and he read somewhere that theres a way asteroids can be prevented from colliding with earth in the future by knocking them to different trajectories.

Also, I wouldnt be sad. Our galaxy is very big with at least 200-400 billion stars to explore, and thats a lot of work for the coming generations and centuries of adventure. Theres likely hundreds of civilizations there too, if not thousands like some scientists predict(more aliens than appear in all of our collective fictions so far). And maybe sometime in the very far future travelling to somewhere else like Andromeda does become a reality(for type 3 civilizations), perhaps it already is to the most advanced civilizations that are. But even if we were limited to just our own galaxy, its a huge playingfield still. Besides it is said in the future Andromeda will be coming to us, it will likely collide with this galaxy and merge with it.

Remember that these are guesses at best. People see a pattern and fill in the rest.

But that's not how it goes in practice. We could very well suddenly invent something that we right now can't even dream of. It can happen, the future isn't predictable.
Exploration of the galaxy is pretty much a given. The timeframe in which we visit the closest stars however, that's very subjective.

And exploration outside of our own galaxy... yeah, that's pretty much impossible to guess.

If we are alive that long. It is very likely that sometime in the next 500thousand years we will encounter an asteroid that will wipe us out unless we have a means to destroy it at that time.

If we can make it through the next century intact as a whole we'll be okay. At that point we will have transitioned from a type 0 civilization to type 1. We will be a planetary civilization. Should such an event occur the planet as a whole will come together to thwart the threat, unlike now where we would just have a bunch of nations trying to solve it with little interaction.

I look at it like zeropeorth does. Never say Never. We have indeed made giant leaps in the past few hundred years. In the past 400 years we went from manual labor to mechanical assembly lines. Flying kites to 747's Wooden boats to giant air ship carriers, sending a hand written letter to a friend 1 state away could take a month, while today sending an email 1/2 way around the world takes milliseconds.

This is not to say the jump was a direct path, there were mini inventions all along the way which enabled us to come to where we are today. We didn't go from carrier pigeon to cell phone over night, there were many products that led up to todays communication devices.

If you think about it, 300 years ago, There was no way to communicate with a family member in another country. Now there are more ways to communicate than people know what to do with. You can call on a phone, you can videa chat on skype, you can instant message them or text message them, you can send them an email or you can send them physical mail. Or in the end you can hop on a plane and be there in mere hours.

The point i'm making is, if you told someone back then that in 300 years we would have a tiny box in our hands that can communicate with someone instantaneously from any where around the world, they would call you crazy, or a witch. We might look ahead and say, "man in 300 years things aren't going to be too much different" you could be very wrong. 10-50 years, sure, maybe things aren't too improved from today, but 300 years in quite a long time.

I also think that people don't notice gradual change as much as they notice drastic change. Kinda like the wrinkles in your face as you age. You may not notice it until you look at an older picture of yourself and then look into a mirror. It then dawns on you how much you've changed over time. Although you look at yourself everyday, you may not notice the tiny changes on a daily basis. Same with invention and discovery. You may not see huge improvements daily, but if you were to remove yourself from society for 100 years and then reemerge from solitude, you would see the world as a foreign place full of new things.

Dude if you told people in ancient Greece about these inventions they wouldn't even get the concept. Just because you can't think it know doesn't mean something crazy can't be invented.

I have to agree here. People say this stuff all the time, but history proves great leaps turn common misconceptions upside down. I mean honestly someone might discover fusion tommorow and stop the what is essentially the Energy wars. We might learn how to bend space and travel in a instant light years.

We are still looking at everything on a 3D space. Look at what Einstein accomplished looking at the world from a 4D space. All it will take is another kid born with a brain deformity who likes physics to become the next Newton or Einstein. For all we know there might be a company developing a pill that makes you super smart and we blow past current physics.

The problem with extrapolating how long it will take for technology to progress is that absolutely nothing - nothing - can predict inventions. In this case, it would be more than just inventions that we could hope to predict, but rather the discovery/creation of new materials, and the discovery of brand new models of physics.

I have to agree here. People say this stuff all the time, but history proves great leaps turn common misconceptions upside down. I mean honestly someone might discover fusion tommorow and stop the what is essentially the Energy wars. We might learn how to bend space and travel in a instant light years.

We are still looking at everything on a 3D space. Look at what Einstein accomplished looking at the world from a 4D space. All it will take is another kid born with a brain deformity who likes physics to become the next Newton or Einstein. For all we know there might be a company developing a pill that makes you super smart and we blow past current physics.

Yup! People used to fight wars over nitrogen soils for their crops. The Fitz Haber came around and invented the Haber process and now we pull the nitrogen right out of the atmosphere for our fertilizers, rather than having to find bat guano sources. Now we fight over other stuff. I wonder what the next thing will be when we conquer energy production.

'Twas a cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead
Or a yawing hole in a battered head
And the scuppers clogged with rotting red
And there they lay I damn me eyes
All lookouts clapped on Paradise
All souls bound just contrarywise, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!

As time goes on, so too does our knowledge. However, figuring out the Earth wasn't flat, or flying is a whole different game. The internet wasn't nearly as big of a stretch of the imagination since we already had phones. However, traveling at the speed of light or faster isn't even thinkable at the moment. The invention and leaps we need to suddenly be able to explore our own galaxy, let alone others, in a decent amount of time AND to be able to return safely would have to be much Much bigger in terms of just how far out of the box they go.

Nah the comparisons are sound. Look at flying for instance. The ideas and preconceived notions we had about flight were derived largely from nature pre 1903. With that said If I could drop a Airbus A-380 off at a drafty castle in the dark ages it would be so mind blowing inconceivable as to not really form any connection with observable nature. We on the other hand have a thousand years of additional natural observation and as such something like the 380 is even close to be outside the box...well it IS obscenely ugly and an abomination to flight, by the concepts behind it are not uncommon.

The same can be said for super luminal travel. Sure right now it would seem to be to be WAY outside the box, but in another 50 or 500 years our understanding of nature could have changed based on our evolving ability to observe it. At that point, maybe, just maybe, "warp speed" becomes just as easy to envision as an A-380.